Mahmoud Khalil vows to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza after release from detention

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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his infant son’s stroller with one hand and cheered as he was welcomed home Saturday by supporters including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters at New Jersey's Newark International Airport a day after leaving a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. A former Columbia University graduate student and symbol of President Donald Trump ’s clampdown on campus protests, he vowed to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza.

“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.”

Joining Khalil at the airport, Ocasio-Cortez said his detention violated the First Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”

“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.”

Khalil, a 30-year-old legal resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center.

“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human,” he said.

Khalil was not accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However the administration has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views it considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal resident who was unlikely to flee and had not been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it was appealing Khalil’s release.

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.